


Appearances

by Caepio



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Appearances, Clothing, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Shapeshifter Loki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-01 23:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8642275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caepio/pseuds/Caepio
Summary: The many aspects of Loki.





	1. Wolfskin

Loki wears wolfskins, soft and heavy. He clasps them with a heavy bronze pin above his collar bone, the furs sown in such a way that they fall in warm, pleated folds to the ground, silvering grey and snow white. They are not the white of fresh fallen snow, when every footstep is a clear sign of passer by, but the pale, cloudy white of the snow many days after it falls.

Loki blends in well with the wintery earth, only his eyes discernible from the snow when he pulls the hood up, his face pale as ice. It’s a kind of shapeshifting in itself. He becomes something else, becomes invisible in the snow. But then he moves, and his eyes catch Thor’s from the edge of the forest before he looks elsewhere again, his eyes trained on something Thor does not see.

Thor sometimes wonders why Loki bothers begging the favor of the use of the falcon cloak from Freyja. The almost lazy way that Loki does everything has Thor think for a moment it might be pure indolence that prompts these cheats. Or else a delight in everything curiously and well fashioned.


	2. Shadows

Loki wanders Asgard in faded, fine wool and linen, kidskin boots on his feet that are silent on the stone floors. The unexpected touch of Loki’s hand brushing across his shoulders makes Thor jump, hand dropping to Mjolnir defensively as Loki soundlessly walks past him into the council chamber.

Nobody sees Loki on those days. He fades into the shadows, leaning against a pillar of the great hall, watching the proceedings with an enigmatic face that Thor thinks even Odin might covet. His eyes give him away though. He can never change his eyes, and the interest, speculation, and downright amusement in them shifts, trembling like light thrown across a body of moving water.


	3. Skin and bone

Thor thinks that Loki delights in new ways of dressing as much as he does in his many forms. Loki without the layers of soft cloth and heavy furs that separate him from the rest of the world is surprisingly fragile, thin and slight. Though not Thor’s height, he is still tall by the Aesir’s standards, however he appears beside men. Without any shape covering his own - if it is truly Loki’s own and not a preferred, but still assumed form - Thor can fit his hands right around his waist, or hold his wrists above him with one hand. Easily break, as he has once before, any bone in Loki’s body. 

It puts a new, dangerous edge to the trouble Loki continuously throws himself into, and tries so desperately to avoid physical injury from. He is so easy to harm.


	4. Shame

Loki can’t always hide his anger. His skin flushes easily, his blood showing through his pale skin when provoked. It’s always anger instead of shame. Not even when he came walking down from the high pastures in the mountains, treading carefully down the rocky paths. He was barefoot then, with nothing but a stolen herdsman’s cloak thrown about him, an eight legged colt following him like a child.

No, Loki is never ashamed, but his anger burns quickly, fiercely, lashing out to touch whoever injured him. Loki never needs it to last - the first retribution is usually enough, whatever may happen to him after. His antics are spontaneous, like the sparks darting up from a flint. He rarely waits for his anger to cool. 


	5. Scars

Loki carries scars for every one of his tricks, all invisible beneath his clothes. Except when he laughs, and the thin, bone white marks where the dwarves’ needles pierced his mouth can be seen in his smile. Even that’s taken on a kind of elegance to it, perhaps merely to spite the dwarves, or perhaps not. It seems at times as if Loki meant it to happen, like the earrings Freyja wears, an injury to the self for a different kind of beauty. 


	6. Symbology

Loki doesn’t tie his hair back, even when he fights he doesn’t braid it out of the way. He threads disconcerting symbols through it sometimes, the look in his eyes when he does so seems to say that the Aesir are getting too used to him, they shouldn’t forget he doesn’t quite belong. It was wolf’s teeth once, white like his scars against the burnished, fox pelt color of his hair, shocking those of the Aesir who knew that one of his children was a wolf, and yet he’d wear teeth like theirs as a decoration. 

It was difficult to feel sorry for Loki’s loss of Jormungandr - thrown into the ocean by Odin like an unwanted bastard - when he did things like that with the shape-kin of his remaining children.


End file.
